S.C.I Mystery vol 1 Chapter 46, The Magic Killer 01: Parody

S.C.I Mystery《S.C.I.谜案集》 Mi An Ji
S.C.I Mystery vol 1 Chapter 46, The Magic Killer 01: Parody

5:50 a.m. in first class on an international flight from New York to S City.


After a long flight of nearly 11 hours, the passengers on board looked rather tired.

Bai Yutang, who has always been very active but not quiet, felt that his bones were all brittle, and when he turned his head to look at Zhan Yao, he saw that he was concentrating on typing in his notebook, while Bai Chi, who was on the other side of the aisle, was sleeping soundly on his seat.

"Cat'er~" Bai Yutang still decided to harass Zhan Yao.

"Shh..." Zhan Yao ignored him and continued to write.

They went to New York this time to assist in Wilson's case and got a lot of information. Zhan Yao had some exchanges with the criminal psychologist there about the case and gained a lot of valuable information that he had to put together.

Seeing that the cat was ignoring himself, Bai Yutang was helpless and had to stand up and stretch, slinking back and forth.

At this point, panicking, a stewardess came up to Bai Yutang and asked, "Sir, are you a policeman?"

"Yeah." Bai Yutang sensed the flight attendant's emotional instability and asked, "What's wrong?"

On one side, Zhan Yao also turned his attention away from the notebook and looked up at the two.

“Yeah, there are three passengers in economy class in a strange state." The flight attendant said.

"Strange? What's a strange thing?" Zhan Yao was puzzled.

At this point, the sprawled Bai Chi also woke up, dazedly crawled up, and stared at the crowd in a daze.

"I saw them take a few pills and then they didn't feel quite right." The flight attendant said, "There's less than an hour before the plane lands, but they're getting worse, can you go check them out?"

"No problem." Bai Yutang nodded, "But how did you know I was a cop?"

"Uh, the passenger in the front seat told me that." With that said, the stewardess kept moving forward, only to see that a man in the front seat was slumped over the back of his chair and waving at them.

...?...

Bai Yutang, sure he didn't know the man, turned his face to Zhan Yao, who shook his head at him, meaning he didn't know him either.

The man looked like Bai Yutang, they were about the same age, they wore a stylish black leather jacket, they looked good, they had glasses with yellow lenses on the bridge of their high nose, their short, sharp hair, deeper eye sockets and contours than Asians, they must have been a hybrid... I don't know him, but... I don't know her, but... she looks familiar.

"Don't be surprised." The man pushed his glasses with his middle finger and smiled brightly, "I know everything."

"Zhen! Stop it." A middle-aged man, who appeared to be quite steady, rose from the seat beside him, gave him a tug, and then apologized to Bai Yutang, "I'm sorry, he's a bit odder as a person."

"No." Bai Yutang interrupted him, "I'd like to know why."

"Huh." The man called Zhen continued to keep his smile on, "Every type of person has a different aura, I can see that because I have magic."

...

"Uh... Can we go check it out first?" The flight attendant interrupted them, urging Bai Yutang.




"Let's go," Bai Yutang raised an eyebrow at Zhan Yao, somewhat dubious - do you want to go or not?

Zhan Yao also raised an eyebrow at him - not interested! He kept his head down and continued typing.

Bai Yutang followed the stewardess towards the economy class, and a sober Bai Chi rushed to follow, and as he passed the man, the man asked Bai Chi inexplicably, "You're a cop too?" The tone was full of surprise.

Oddly enough, the always mild-mannered Bai Chi turned his face to glare at him and said somewhat menacingly, "I don't talk to magicians, magicians are liars." After saying that, he quickly followed Bai Yutang out of the first-class cabin.

The man froze for a moment, turning back in puzzlement and asking the equally astonished Zhan Yao, "How did he know I was a magician?"

Zhan Yao held back a laugh and shrugged, "Maybe he can see your aura too..."

"Poof, poof," the middle-aged man sitting next to the man couldn't help but laugh out loud as well.

Zhan Yao bowed his head, mindful... Finally remembered why he looked familiar, he had seen his posters on the street, and it had been reported in magazines. This man, Zhao Zhen, is known as the greatest magician of our time, and everyone calls him "The Magician", because his magic shows often make people wonder, and he feels like he has magic powers. He was wearing colored glasses and didn't look much like the poster, so Zhan Yao didn't recognize it at first. Besides, even someone like, presumably, Bai Yutang, who never focused on entertainment, wouldn't recognize him. Zhan Yao will remember him entirely because of his overwhelming memory.

At this time, there was a commotion from the economy class, and then, two men with small knives suddenly rushed forward and backward and saw that they were red-eyed and shortness of breath, apparently taking some kind of hallucinogenic drugs, and apparently the amount was not small.

Following them closely, Bai Yutang also chased in.

As soon as he grabbed the one running behind him and gave him a hard squeeze on the shoulder, he heard Kata's voice and the man fell to the ground with a scream. The one who ran in front of him faintly dazed, Zhao Zhen, who was standing beside him, suddenly unloaded his shoulders with almost the same movement as Bai Yutang, then looked up and smiled at Bai Yutang, "Is it standard enough to learn and sell?"

Bai Chi brought the other man who had been put down by Bai Yutang from economy class as well, and the captain put the three in the lounge of the first-class cabin.

"What's going on?" Zhan Yao walked over to Bai Yutang, somewhat curious.

"These boys were overdosed on drugs, holding a passenger hostage with a knife and asking the pilot to take the plane to Afghanistan." Bai Yutang smilingly asked the stewardess to fill the three with some tea, coupled with the pain of dislocation, the three seemed to have recovered some sanity and looked somewhat disheveled.

The commotion shocked several passengers, and one little girl cried out in tears, unable to be persuaded to calm down.

Zhao Zhen walked over, stroked her hair, and said, "Hey, little beauty, like flowers?"

The little girl choked and looked up at him, a little puzzled look in her eyes.

"What is it?" Zhao Zhen said, reaching behind her ear and pulling out a red rose flower.

"Huh?" The little girl stopped crying without realizing it with a look of surprise on her face.

"Hmm!" Zhao Zhen sat down next to her and asked, "What animal do you like?"

"Dolphins!" The little girl said excitedly.

"Haha." Zhao Zhen smiled, "That one's too big to fit in the plane if it changes out, so..." Saying that, the hand reached out to the little girl with a flick, slowly spreading out, "Let's get a small one."

In his hand, there was an exquisite plastic dolphin in his heart.

The little girl immediately burst into laughter and the passengers around her began to applaud, Bai Yutang and Zhan Yao also looked amused.

Zhao Zhen seemed to be enjoying this feeling of being in the limelight and stood up to greet the passengers around him but froze when his eyes turned to Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang this way...

Just behind them, Bai Chi was staring at him with an angry face and hummed in a small voice, "Liar!"

Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang both looked back at Bai Chi inexplicably, and Zhao Zhen was even more astonished and asked the middle-aged man next to him in a small voice, it was his economist Qin Bin: "Have I ever offended him?"

Qin Bin shook his head, "No recollection of that."

Bai Chi exasperatedly walked over to the seat and sat down, and Zhao Zhen walked up to him and asked curiously, "Why are you calling me a liar?"

Bai Chi glanced at him without good grace and said, "As long as the movement is faster than 1/25th of a second, it's hard for the naked eye to catch your movements when combined with the proper concentration shift." After saying that, he ignored the embarrassed Zhao Zhen and turned away, not forgetting to add, "Magicians are all liars."

"Attention passengers, S-City Airport will be arriving soon, the plane is about to prepare for landing, please return to your seats..." The flight attendant's wonderful voice rang out just in time to ease the awkwardness. Zhao Zhen, got back in his seat and put on his seatbelt, but his mind was scrambling to remember, is this someone I've offended before? Why can't I remember? Small size, doll face, big eyes... It's impossible! He hadn't seen it... Until the plane landed, he tried hard... to no avail!

Bai Chi followed Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang off the plane with their luggage when Zhao Zhen suddenly asked him, "What's your name?"

Coldly glaring at him, Bai Chi picked up his luggage and left quickly - completely oblivious.

"This man must have a grudge against me!" Zhao Zhen, once again...

Once off the plane, Bai Yutang's cell phone rang and the caller was Wang Shao.

"Hey! Captain, are you here yet?" The background sound from the phone was a bit noisy, with the sound of sirens.

"What's wrong?" There's a bad feeling about it.

"Big deal, you guys better come straight to Nova Kindergarten." Wang Shao said, "It wasn't clear on the phone."

"Okay." Hanging up the phone, Bai Yutang shook his head at Zhan Yao and Bai Chi, "There's another case, go to the scene first."

Drive, catch a ride to Nova Kindergarten.

This kindergarten, with which Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang are familiar, is the one where the hijacking happened not long ago, the last time it was a thrill, and this time there is no telling what has happened again.

Looking at the chaotic scene at the door, Bai Yutang sighed, "Shouldn't this kindergarten get a Fengshui man to look at?" [1] Fengshui also known as Chinese geomancy, is a pseudoscientific traditional practice originating from ancient China, which claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment.

Wang Shao has run out to report the case: "Students who came to class this morning found their teacher dead in the classroom."

Zhan Yao frowned, “Dead in the classroom? Why was a mere murder given to S.C.I.?"




Wang Shao laughed bitterly: "It's all very wicked to say that! Just go in and see the scene anyway and you'll see."

Soon the congregation reached the second-floor classroom, which was a classroom of the larger class, and there was no class number at the door, only a colorful sign in the shape of a moon, and this kindergarten had three classes in each grade, all distinguished by the stars, moon, and sun.

Walking into the classroom door, Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang froze, only to see that the desks and chairs in the middle of the classroom had been removed to reveal an empty space. The deceased was a young woman, a beautiful kindergarten teacher, who had her carotid artery severed and was lying quietly in the middle of the classroom. The weirdest thing was that on the ground beneath her, a strange circular pattern was drawn with blood, like the kind of magic array that was so popular in ancient Europe... This kind of scene, all too familiar.

Drawing a cold breath, Zhan Yao muttered, "Magic killings..."

Wang Shao nodded, "The brothers of the Major Crime Unit were all confused as soon as they saw this and informed us at the first opportunity."

"Weird!" Bai Yutang also had a grim look on his face.

As any cop knows, the Magic Killer is one of the top ten unsolved crimes in S-City, the mysterious killer who kills without selectivity and leaves weird magic arrays and patter under the bodies at the sites of the crimes every time he commits them, killing no less than thirty people in total over the course of a year... Only, this killer had stopped working ten years ago, and The Magic Killer was as if had evaporated from the world. I had no idea that ten years later, the exact same case would happen again.

Gong-sun walked over with his gloves off and he had performed a preliminary autopsy.

“Yeah?" Bai Yutang hurried up and asked.

"The deceased, named Zhang Zhenzhen, aged 23, died of excessive blood loss due to a carotid artery dissection, and the time of death should have been between 10pm and 11pm last night,"

"What about that magic array?" Zhan Yao asked somewhat eagerly.

"It was painted with the blood of the dead, with tools like a brush or something..." Gong-sun spoke, paused, looked at Bai Yutang and said, "It's almost exactly the same as the case from ten years ago."

Bai Yutang rubbed his brow in bitterness, "That is to say, isn't some boring fool imitating his predecessor?"

Gong-sun shrugged his shoulders, "That's out of my jurisdiction, I'll just do the autopsy."

Zhan Yao walked over to the body, looked down, walked around the body, then climbed up to a table and looked down...

"Cat'er, what's wrong?" Bai Yutang asked.

Zhan Yao stood up from the table and shook his head, "It wasn't the man who did it."

"Oh?" Bai Yutang and a few others came over, "How so?"

"That case I've studied for a long time." Zhan Yao held Bai Yutang's outstretched hand and jumped off the table, saying, "That killer had to stand up high to see the deceased after each killing, as if he was admiring a work of art, and that process, probably made him enjoy the crime more than killing the deceased, so at the scene of each killing, there was bound to be a bulge that appeared four or five paces above the deceased's head, just like this..." With that said, Zhan Yao lifted a chair and walked to a spot five paces away from the deceased's head, lowered the stool and let Bai Yutang stand up, asking him, "What do you see?"

Bai Yutang looked down at the body and said, "The whole body and pattern is in view." After saying that, he climbed down and waved at the forensics officer, "Take a few shots at that angle too."

Wang Shao scratched his head and said, "Looks like it's a copycat crime, so let's give it back to the Major Crime Unit."

Bai Chi crouched down and looked at the figure carefully, saying, "He'll kill again." Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang also nodded.

Seeing that Wang Shao was still a bit puzzled, Zhan Yao asked him, "If you killed someone and wanted to put the blame on a serial killer, would you choose someone who hadn't committed a crime in ten years to imitate?"

The crowd fell silent.

Bai Yutang sighed and said, "A copycat type serial killer..."

"Rather than a parody, it's more like some other reason." Zhan Yao says, "Generally imitative serial killers have a certain borderline and antisocial personality disorder, they don't have basic feelings like compassion, morality, etc., but they have more developed feelings on the mental level, they worship the person they are imitating and enjoy the thrill of becoming an idol in the process of imitating, so they tend to be non-detail-oriented! It's just..."

"It's just that this man's imitation is rushed." Bai Yutang Interface said, "No enjoyment at all, just simply retracing the steps like a parody."

"What does that mean?" A Major Crime Unit officer on one side couldn't help but ask curiously.

"Suggests that the killer himself has some relationship with this real The Magic Killer... But it shouldn't be the kind of relationship one knows or understands the other." Zhan Yao tapped his chin lightly, "More specifically, I think he may have had something to do with The Magic Killer's murder."

Bai Yutang thought for a moment and said to Wang Shao, "We'll take this case, tell the group to find all the previous information about magic killings, investigate all the victims, and give me a list of their relatives and friends."

"Yes, Captain!" Wang Shao immediately led the order to leave.

Bai Chi finally stood up, looked back at Zhan Yao, and said, "This is a medieval magic array, like a pattern of eyes."

"A lot like an eye indeed." Bai Yutang and Zhan Yao watched intently.

"What do the eyes represent?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Not very well understood." Bai Chi shook his head.

Zhan Yao smiled and touched Bai Chi's head, "Bai Chi, you go to the city library later and borrow all the books about magic!"

"Hmm." Bai Chi turned and prepared to leave, suddenly thinking of something to turn back and whisper, "Does 'Harry Potter' count?"

... Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang exchanged glances while pointing to the door: "Go!"

"Okay... okay... Okay..." Bai Chi rushed off.

Walking out of the school building, Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang saw a dozen children gathered in the small playground not far away, each in a state of shock. It was difficult to take evidence with these children, most of the six or seven-year-olds could not distinguish between fantasy and reality, but the two were glad to see a familiar figure... Little Lu Zhen.

Lu Zhen was comforting a sobbing female classmate, and every now and then looked up in both his directions. Bai Yutang beckoned to him, and Lu Zhen nodded and turned his head to the girl next to him. The girl nodded, and Lu Zhen took her with him, walking over to Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang.

"Uncle Bai, Uncle Zhan, her name is Sun Qian, and she was the first to find the body this morning." Lu Zhen looked up and said, "I asked her earlier, and she didn't know what was going on either, she pushed open the door she saw Teacher Zhang lying on the ground, covered in blood, and then she cried in fear. Then we came too, and I called the teachers of the other classes, who called the police."

Afterwards, Lu Zhen spoke at length about Zhang Zhenzhen, but there was nothing special to be gained.

Zhan Yao and Bai Yutang finished their questions and decided to go back to S.C.I. first.




"Cat'er, you were up all night." Bai Yutang said while driving.

"I'm not sleepy." Zhan Yao leaned back in his seat and looked out the car window, "Where are you going? The police station is not that direction."

"Let's go home and take a shower, you better get a few hours sleep." Bai Yutang said and the car had pulled up to their dormitory building.

"No, we all have things to do... Well..." Zhan Yao was a bit anxious, but the words were blocked back by a kiss from Bai Yutang.

"Cat'er, you just need to keep your head above water, you understand?" Bai Yutang tapped Zhan Yao's chin.

Red-faced, Zhan Yao pushed him away, and Bai Yutang shouted straight behind him, "Cat'er, help me with my luggage!"

Zhan Yao was walking around angry with himself. What's going on? The mouse would say anything, and he would blush and beat himself up.



~ S.C.I Mystery Volume 1: The Magic Killer ~



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